Analyze

我訪問到的阿嬤也有在高度人力密集的產業中工作過，如餐飲、紡織等等，反映了當代大環境中原民來到都市的處境。都市原民作為台灣產業發展的推手之一，卻無法擁有安身立命的家，而被迫在各處流浪，直到近代才開啟了與政府溝通的橋樑，卻依然有種種難題需要克服。

I am particularly interested in comparative approaches on how different sites (and academics in those places or studying them) are thinking about COVID in their localities. How are people dealing with issues of trust and information in an era when entire archives are in danger (like the police archives in Guatemala which had been rescued in the past decade and are now in danger). This question expands beyond COVID but has become crucial in the context of Ecuador where reliable data is hard to come by. Another important aspect for us is how indigenous communities are fairing amid the pandemic (here a fabulous article on the terrible situation in Brazil—which is not so different to Ecuador's). This touches on issues of communication, infrastructure, language, systemic racism, and more. Finally, I am also interested in ways in which we might be a able to contribute to some of these issues from our academic spaces. Collaborators (which can take many forms) are certainly welcomed.

I'm a co-founder of Kaleidos - Center for Interdisciplinary Ethnography, a space for academic experimentations supported by two top ranked universities in Ecuador (University of Cuenca and FLACSO-Ecuador). We are located in Cuenca, where I am assistant professor of medical anthropology. Together with a team of researchers we have been tracking covid19 with a specific focus on Latin America through Spanish language podcasts, collective texts, webinars, and online forums.

My current ethnographic interest is on documenting data distrust networks from the neighborhood scale to the national level in Ecuador, and how these networks have produced distinctive approaches (and failures) to the current pandemic.

I was interested in learning about how air pollution has been talked/researched in the New Orleans area. Mainly, the need to highlight local specificities and historical analysis. A 1950s study on air pollution in New Orleans (Air Pollution and New Orleans Asthma), for instance, documented asthma incidence among black communities (sadly the article still uses the N word), and its relationship to underground fire burning in nearby dumps. The study is more comprehensive and did a census in part of the city as well as a number of medical tests on 84 individuals.

A second study, this one from 2007, documented asthma in children (Prevalence of Indoor Allergen Exposures among New Orleans Children with Asthma). It has a relevant focus of the differences between document indoor allergen exposure in different areas of the US and how subtropical weather in NOLA plays an important role in the kinds of allergies that children with asthma face. One of the main findings of the study can be summarized in the following quote “our data show that asthmatic children in New Orleans may be exposed to a greater number of allergens at moderate to high levels compared to asthmatic children living in other inner cities and to the general population.”

Finally, a third reference, the book Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to Reclaim, Rebuild, and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast talks about something, others have already pointed out (@Omar Perez Figueroa for instance) regarding areas that undergo dramatic change and hardship after natural disasters like hurricane Katrina and Rita. This book, particularly chapter 5 (though I can’t access the full text) explains the highly toxic environment that resulted (and remains) in the New Orleans area due to little clean-up action following the disasters. Lack of funding, deference to poorly resourced local authorities, and policy-failure all affect New Orleans (and many of our sites of research) particularly the fate of vulnerable communities.

I am interested in seeing how social ties and networks have been used to cope with (un)natural disasters. My research focus on places under disasters conditions such as Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria, in which social ties have made the difference between life and death. Furthermore, “natural” disaster has been used to approved austerity measures and unjust policies to impoverished communities like in New Orleans after Katrina. These policies were not new, as they are rooted in structures of power to preserve the status quo. Yet, people have resisted, “through a network of branches, cultures, and geographies” that has stimulated a reflective process of looking within for solutions rather than outside. As often this outside solutions are not only detached from community’s reality but can perpetuate social injustices and inequalities.

McKittrick, K., & Woods, C. A. (Eds.). (2007). Black geographies and the politics of place. South End Press.

Bullard, R. D., & Wright, B. (Eds.). (2009). Race, place, and environmental justice after Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to reclaim, rebuild, and revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Westview Press.